WW2 Structure

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Single storey / three bay WW2 structure, aligned N-S in a field on south side of Lurganconary Road. The first and third bays are narrow and the central one is a single room.

Pitched corrugated asbestos cement roof with semicircular ridge and circular asbestos cement stops. Walls are cement rendered, temporary (100mm) red brick. Single square red brick chimney on ridge between bays two and three.

N gable (front) has a doorway to centre and a single narrow window opening to either side. Door and frame are gone and remaining timber to windows suggests that they contained a plain side hung casement with bottom hinged transom over and narrow timber cill (now gone).

East (left) elevation has a (100mm wide) buttress to either end and two on wall. Abutting southern most bay is a low, square, rendered water tank on brick piers. Central bay has two blocked up window openings (double the width of those to front).

South (rear) gable identical to north gable; and west (right) elevation is the mirror image of the east one, but without the water tank.

This structure is linked to road by a concrete track, at junction of which are an assortment of concrete blocks - possibly aerial anchors or the remains of a picket post.

Historical information

The 1946 Air Ministry map of Greencastle Aerodrome does not show this building. However, its detailing, construction and location suggests that it is a WWII building and likely to be part of the Greencastle complex which lies to the south and east.

There were over 600 airfields in Britain at the end of WW2, and 29 in Northern Ireland. Construction work began at Greencastle in spring 1942, the main contractor being Carmichael of Edinburgh. Kilkeel RAF Station (as it was known) was commissioned on 30th July 1942, and handed over to the United States Army Airforce (USAAF) on 3rd August 1943, becoming Station 237, one of 12 such American airfields in N. Ireland. Its principal building groups were of utility construction, and dispersed around the local area to avoid concentrated enemy bombing; its radar station being furthest away, located at Maghereagh to NE of Kilkeel. The station was a satellite to Langford Lodge (near Antrim), preparing aircraft for operational bases in East Anglia. Its second important role was as a training school for aircrews arriving from America; this Combat Crew Replacement Centre (CCRC) was instigated on 20th December 1943, and was disbanded in autumn 1944. The base was handed back to the RAF on 31st May 1945, and decommissioned soon afterwards. However it remained in Air Ministry ownership until the early 1960s, when the land was sold back to locals.

Primary Sources:
1. Air Ministry Map entitled: ‘Greencastle Record Site Plan’ (1946).

Secondary Sources:
1. G.B. Innes, ‘British Airfield Buildings of the Second World War’ (Leicester 1995).
2. L. Murphy, ‘Action Station: The story of Greencastle Aerodrome’, in 12 Miles of Mourne vol. 3 (Kilkeel 1989), pp..33-50.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Austerity architecture of the second world war attempted to simplify construction down to the minimal amount of materials and marry it with the maximum utility. This building is not an architectural masterpiece. Its interest lies in the historical reasons for its construction (WW2), its short practical lifespan, and its austere ‘temporary’ construction.